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| Rangoon, Myanmar |  Review on December 27, 2018: |
Mike E
Rating:  | Review Topic: K1 Visa
Male petitioner. Female Burmese beneficiary. Petitioner was not permitted to enter embassy so he waited outside embassy. Non-beneficiaries are permitted only when translator is needed. For example several residents of India and Nepal use this embassy for convenience, and they spoke neither Burmese nor English.
Note that per Wikileaks this huge embassy is a major CIA outpost and as such, absolutely zero electronics are allowed. It was very sad watching several visa applicants forgetting to give their phones to the people who drove them to Embassy before their rides drove away. Many appointments had to be canceled.
Similarly there is no public parking and several beneficiaries who drove themselves struggled to find a parking spot and had to miss their appointment.
This embassy has an “additional form†requirement where the beneficiary must list names, dates of birth,’addresses, phone nimbers, and occupations of parents, in-laws, siblings, and children. If one doesn’t have this form at time of interview, no opportunity is given to fill out a blank form. The appointment must be re-scheduled.
Three hour total appointment at embassy. Ten minutes of actual interview time. Most time was spent waiting. To kill time and speed up process, beneficiary helped older beneficiaries having trouble understanding instructions. For example, she helped finger print an old man who didn’t understand what was going on.
CO was not of Burmese origin and had rudimentary Burmese language skills. Interview was conducted in English at beneficiary’s choice.
Most questions were straightforward. USA petitioner is dual citizen of Canada and naturalized USA citizen. The CO wanted to know if beneficiary planned to live in Canada or USA. The CO also asked beneficiary for how long petitioner was a USA citizen. She got the answer wrong by year (she is pretty bad with dates) and was still approved.
CO asked if petitioner could speak Burmese (answer: a little). CO asked when was last time the couple met, and was told petitioner arrived five days prior, was outside embassy waiting and would wait for visa to return to USA with beneficiary.
CO did not ask for any documents the email to beneficiary did not list. The tax forms the email asked for were not collected.CO looked over the photos from 17 meetings and returned them.
CO asked how couple met. Answer was an online dating site. CO did not ask for proof that this site was not an IMB.
Visa approved and was told visa would take 1-2 weeks.
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Consulate / USCIS Member Review #25271